The CIO, OMB and Direct or Dotted?

For most of the Bush administration, a core debate in the information technology arena has centered on this: To whom should the chief information officer report? Authors of the 1996 Clinger Cohen Act believed to whom the CIO reports matters and inserted language calling for the CIO to report to the agency head. CIO magazine has argued for years that the reporting lines matter. As have the major IT research firms, not to mention most CIOs themselves.

The Bush administration has argued that it doesn't matter, and therefore has not pushed for CIOs to report to the head of the agency. It doesn't matter if the reporting relationship between the CIO and the head of the agency is direct, dotted or several positions removed, it has argued, because the agency head will call on the CIO when needed.

Surprisingly, it looked like officials in the Office of Management and Budget, however, may have changed their minds this month, according to a draft memo written by Deputy Director of Management Clay Johnson. The memo told agencies they should have the CIO report directly to its top executive. But when the final version of the memo hit the streets on Thursday, the language had been removed. Nextgov has a story on the changes OMB made and a side-by-side comparison of the two memos. We invite you to join the debate.